My TV needs (1 Viewer)

[Steve Satch]

My eight year old Mitsu 35" direct view (old school) TV is starting to go. The problem is I have not paid any attention to TV technology in the eight years since I bought the set. I'm only familiar with 4:3 direct view. I recently have spent time here trying to read and learn but all the terms and acronyms leave me a bit bewildered. Here's the current situation I have:

Budget is about 2K for a new TV
Toshiba 3109 DVD player (non progressive scan. It's old, about 3-4 years)
RCA DirecTivo satellite
Yamaha 995 AV receiver
Norh 4.0 speakers

Viewing distance is about 15-16 feet. Family watches about seven-eight hours of regular TV from DirecTV a day. Two DVD movies are watched on the weekend. I want something BIG as the viewing distance is pretty far away. Rear projection seems like a good bang for the buck and large, but since more than 90% of the family viewing is standard TV and not DVDs that might be the wrong direction to take. I have read here that DirecTV doesn't look so good on rear projection TVs, but DVDs do. The Pioneer 64" from Costco for 2K seems like a good buy but like I said I don't know if 16:9 rear projection is wrong for my needs. How would I know without trying it? I have no idea when I would upgrade to HD. I guess whenever the DirecTivo with HD is affordable. I'm looking for anyone kind enough to lend me any info or push in the right direction what to look for, questions to ask, ideas, experinces, FAQs etc. Thanks in advance

 

[Johnny Mo]

Steve,

while I can't offer you any guidance on the intricacies of DirecTV and Rear Projectors, I can tell you that I am extremely happy with my 34" Toshiba (CRT) HD 16:9 Cinema Series (34HDX82). My viewing distance is in the 14'-17' range. I paid approx $1,800 (all-in) last Feb. This may satisfy all of your requirements, unless you were dead set on going with a larger screen. I run the HD Cable signals thru 1 set of Component Video, and DVD thru the 2nd set. This set also has a DVI input.

 

[Steve Satch]

I'm just worried that satellite (non HD) will look BAD on a big screen

 

[Jeff Gatie]

Steve, satellite may look bad on a big screen, depending on the quality of the broadcast. The way I see it, if I picked my television by the way it displayed the lowest quality signal I pass to it, I would have stayed with a NTSC 32" and I would be missing out on a great big, high quality picture for the sources I consider critical (DVD's & HD). You have to weigh your critical viewing habits and decide if a big, wide, anamorphic picture you'll get with DVD's and in the future the stunning picture you get with HD is worth putting up with a subpar, compressed, NTSC picture. For me, it was a no brainer, YMMV.

 

[Steve Schaffer]

Steve,

pq from a standard DirecTV receiver will depend on the quality of the line doubling (or de-interlacing, means the same thing) on whichever HD-ready set you choose and the amount of compression DirecTV is using on the particular channel you're watching. I'm sure you can discern the latter with your current set--some channels look better than others. The good ones will look better than on your current tv on a set with a good doubler, the bad ones will look worse. Of the sets I've seen lately Pioneer, Sony, and Toshiba have good line doublers. I had an Hitachi a while back whose doubler gave pasty posterized fleshtones but that may have improved on current models (I returned that Hitachi).

If you upgrade your DirecTV receiver to an HD capable model, which I would recommend, you have the option of letting the D* box upconvert standard channels to an HD scanrate, eliminating the set's line doubler from the equation. Most boxes will also pass HD channels natively and SD channels as 480p, giving the better ones near dvd quality. DirecTV boxes made by LG (marketed as LG, Sony, and Hughes HTL-HD--not the old E-86) are quite good in this respect.